Today's modern lifestyle depends on digital computer systems and those systems are vulnerable to attacks that disrupt communications, alter/access data or issue false commands/data. Disrupting communications hampers the ability of the system to react to changing conditions. If that reaction is delayed too long the asset or facility may not be able to alter its operation in time to prevent a service outage or damage to the equipment. Altering and accessing data allows the system to react correctly but changes the situation to one which should not exist or simply supplies the intruder with sensitive information. Finally, issuing false commands tells the system to alter its state to react the wrong way, potentially resulting in damage to the system, or loss of service or loss of life. For example one type of attack that issues false commands is the “replay” attack in which an intruder or hacker records commands sent by the network and then replays it on the network. This attack is very effective because the attacker does not have to decrypt the message; he merely observes the effect of the traffic. Replay attacks can be used over and over until the system rejects those messages.
All of the attacks can be foiled using a single counter measure—polymorphism. Polymorphism or “mutating” is defined as the ability to change (perhaps an encryption from one method to another or hardware functionality) on the fly. Polymorphism has two components which when combined make up what the inventors herein call CipherLoc®. The two components are                (1) a polymorphic cipher engine (the software) and        (2) a polymorphic hardware engine.        
The polymorphic cipher engine and the polymorphic hardware engine platforms are designed to work together but are mutually exclusive of each other and can be used separately in a multitude of divergent ways.
The present invention is directed to the second component—the polymorphic hardware engine.